Yahoo Search Engine and Directory Forum

Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been fortunate to have several Yahoo employees spending time answering questions about the new Yahoo Search.

This level of participation in a webmaster forum from a public search company is truly unprecedented, and is something we definitely would like to continue. However, the shear volume of questions and responses we’ve received has created some threads that have become quite difficult to follow.

So, in order to try and make things a bit easier to follow, I think now would be a good time to move to a Q & A similar to the format that we’ve used in the past in the Google forum.

Here’s how it will work:

Questions will be posted in this thread. We will let this thread run for the next few days. Once we have a solid list of quality questions, this thread will be locked. If/when someone from Yahoo Search decides to respond to a question from this thread, we will split off that particular Q&A into its own thread. Any follow-up questions or discussions will take place in the new thread. Doing this will help us keep everything on-topic.

2. Keep the questions short and sweet. (You will have the opportunity to get long-winded in any follow-up discussions).

3. No specific site information. (We are not the Yahoo help desk or spam police)

4. Keep the tone positive and professional. (All rants will be nuked)

5. Read the other questions before you post yours. (I hate spending time deleting duplicates).

And finally, please keep in mind that just because you ask, doesn’t mean you will get an answer. There are obviously many questions that Yahoo can’t/won’t answer. And we (Mods/Admins) have no input or control regarding which questions, if any, they choose to answer.

My question has to do with 301 redirects. Currently, if you have a 301 redirected to your index page, your index disappears from the results (or rather, the index info shows, but the link shows the original, pre-redirected url). This creates the same fallout as a penalization.

Hi My site has dived recently in the results pages on Yahoo.com and Yahoo.co.uk. With their new CAP I understand Yahoo are issuing guidelines for what is considered quality content. Are these available yet? Secondly Overture's new site match is not available in UK. Our only option is to pay to be in the directory - but we are already there without having paid but description is not great. Any advice how to restore the site to previous position?

It has come to my attention that one of the sites I work with was banned because they had a affiliate link to an adult dvd program which while searching though that program they found inappropate keywords even tho the keywords didnt reflect the actual content on the dvd.. so Yahoo seemed to have banend us cause of this situation.. this dvd company is one of the biggest in the US and its hard to belive yahoo would do something like this..

also now that we are banned we are unsure if there is an appeal process.. from what we gather there is nothing in place right now.

Here are some that I gathered from other threads (from various members):

- I would just like to know for some certainty that when my grace period runs out that my sites will still remain in the Yahoo index if either they have been crawled naturally by Yahoo! Slurp or by me using the free add URL link.

- What happens if you overspend your PPC budget? does the site get dropped and re-added when you add more money?

- How long does it actually take for Site Match sites to be added? 72 hours or 4 business days?

- If Yahoo is a "new" engine, then why are you keeping the INK PFI penalties, but not keeping any of the INK PFI paid pages?

- I'm opposed to manual reviews for people who paid for inclusion. To much spam in Yahoo to justify putting questionably penalized PFI customers through any more hoops. Don't you have any lists of whose penalized already?

- When does Y expect any of this to begin showing free crwaled sites?

- If I am in yahoo directory, will my site be “banned” from the search index?

- Can i pay for the directory to get listed in the yahoo index to avoid the PPC costs?

On another thread, Yahoo! has published an email address to appeal exclusion form Inktomi now Yahoo!Search. If the appeal is rejected: (1) will Yahoo! provide specific reasons so that the site owner will know precisely what changes need to be made; (2) if the web site owner makes changes, may the owner re-submit to Yahoo! allowing the web site, (presuming it now conforms to Yahoo! Guidelines) to be added via "Add URL" (3) or will rejection mean that the web site owner needs to register with Site Match for review and inclusion?

If a web site excluded from Inktomi now Yahoo!Search registers with Site Match, will the web site be required to register each year thereafter in order to be included in Yahoo!Search?

If the reason for a web site's registration with Site Match is because it was dropped by Inktomi would it be 'more fair' to charge a "site review fee" instead of charging for each page plus per click? There are several penalities here: The first penalty was being dropped by Inktomi, the second penalty is having to pay for each page to be indexed in Yahoo!Search. And if the site owner has to pay for each year after the first year, then it's a lifetime penalty.

If a site is spidered/indexed in 'free inclusion' --are all pages indexed or only the home page?

Mike - Could you please address the issue of the vanishing homepage PFI problem? Many webmasters (such as flobaby) are noticing that their PFI pages have disappeared and in their place are dupe content links and 301 redirects. This, according to Yahoo, is an indication that the site (or page) has some kind of penalty... but all of the Inktomi resellers swear that it is not a penalty or ban of any kind at all. In fact, Positiontech still swears to me that my site has no ban on it of any kind, while Tim has made it very clear that my site does. Many of us have gotten so many mixed signals, it's disturbing. It's like dating a girl with multiple personality disorder. I now know for sure that, from what Tim has said, that the vanishing PFI homepage issue is indeed some kind of penalty and I am patiently (5 months now) waiting for resolution.

Could you please go into some detail on the difference between the vanishing homepage penalty and a regular editorial ban? What triggers each one etc.?

From my research, I have found evidence that the vanishing homepage ban is an automated penalty that hits only PFI pages and an editorial ban is a penalty that will drop the entire site from the index. Both are "eternal" bans. Is this accurate? If so, why are PFI pages treated differently than organic results if, in therory, they are supposed to be treated the same? Positiontech swore to me many times that PFI pages were treated the exact same... and yet... only PFI pages are hit with the vanishing homepage curse... in fact, my site's homepage disappeared immediately after signing up for PFI and is still gone.

How can you justify dropping all Inktomi PFI pages from the Yahoo index, while still keeping all of the Inktomi penalties from before? That sounds a little unfair especially given the fact that the Inktomi penalty system was sketchy at best (as I obviously know from personal experience).

How will Yahoo address the editorial penalty issue? I submitted my url-review request to the email you suggested in the other thread. I have heard nothing. When will these be reconsidered, and when will the editorial penalties be removed?

(1) When a page is submitted to the PFI program, is it reviewed by the editors immediatly so that we can tell if we pass the editorial rules before submitting more pages?

(2) Assuming we adjust our pages for better ranking, how can we tell if we step over the line, so we don't keep making the same mistake and get all our pages banned, at great expense?

(3) Could our account show a green stamp (passes review), yellow stamp (at risk), red stamp (banned) or no stamp (not reviewed)for each page, to guide us through the adjusment phase without costly mistakes?

This is a question probably anybody who's been paying attention can answer:

When will yahoo.com in the US be permanently switching to Inktomi/new Yahoo Search results?

I know they've been ramping it up gradually and switching back/forth between google and ink, so to what extent have they been using Inktomi to this point?

I ask because I've had a site I've recently redesigned start doing well in yahoo/ink results, but that's based on the old design/layout. The redesign is more targeted at Google, but if I'm going to be doing well in the new yahoo, I may be better off with the old design.

Yahoo Slurp has crawled the new site, but I'm thinking I'll get a chance to see if its worth sticking with the previous design (if/when yahoo.com goes back to Ink results), since Ink was never very quick to pick up changes.

If a site is rejected by Yahoo for inclusion in Sitematch, is the site owner told the reason for the refusal and given the opportunity to rectify the problem. Is it right that you have to pay again once the problems are put right? Will there be a point of contact so the matter can be discussed with the Yahoo reviewer?

I have a client site that was accepted for Overture Direct submit over a week ago. The listing for the home page URL shows active and was refreshed on 3/15. But, the site doesn’t show up in the first 220 Yahoo search listings I checked for a key phrase on the page -- I assume it’s not in the search results at all. There’s no clicks recorded, either.

I know that listing is not a guarantee of placement for any searches, and I am glad that the site was accepted. But, where does it show up?!